Long Beach Pride 2012

By: Kelly Rummelhart

Had a great time at Gay Pride this year! My best friend Stacie and I were going to be too pregnant this summer to attend SF Pride as usual, so looked around and found out that Long Beach Pride had perfect timing. So Friday, Stacie and I flew from Sacramento to Long Beach and met three other surrogate friends there.

We had our shirts made, although Stacie forgot hers at home . . . I’ll blame pregnancy brain. Saturday we hung around the festival grounds, which was a blast. At first we were surprised they charged $20 to get in but it was well worth the money. San Francisco doesn’t charge for a similar experience, but we all agreed it was a lot better than SF Pride’s booths, etc.

Sunday we walked down to a friend’s house and watched the parade from her front yard. I really liked Long Beach’s parade as well. I wasn’t sure how it would compare to SF’s but it was great. Yes, it was smaller but it had a great community feel to it. Overall, I was really impressed with Long Beach Pride. I would definitely return another year there for sure. However, after seeing how FABULOUS Las Vegas Pride’s entry was decorated . . . men and drag queens in feathers and the car decked out with feather streamers and sparkly decorations, we may go there next year. We were thinking of Chicago before, but Vegas got our attention.